This past weekend we did a day trip out to Matroosberg. We started at 630AM and got their at about 830AM where we had a quick breakfast before attempting the ascent. I drove with my swaar (Cruiser VX 70 series) and a mate (Highlux 3.0 D4D Auto) as well as the wife and kids.

The diff on my Troll was bust when we did the trip, but that will be fixed this week hopefully. Nevertheless the absence of a diff was not an issue.

At this time of the year the route is bone dry, but I know in winter the snowfall changes the driving conditions drastically.

It took us about 3 hours to make a slow ascent to the plateu (Groothoek Kloof) and then we made the ascent to top of the peak via a grade 5 ascent. Apparently most people dont make this ascent, but good thing we didnt know that :-)

My boet went up 1st in his VX with his lockers on and then I followed with no lockers. I was at 1st concerned that I would not make it (due to my previously owned Pathfinder not being as capable), but the Troll slowly made her way up without losing traction once. The Hilux followed us up with its lockers on and too did a great job.

We then did the loop track up an until the "Gutter" where we had to turn around as the "Gutter" proved to be a serious obstacle that could do some serios damage to a vehicle. My boet attempted it and got seriosly wedged into the boulders and adjacent sand bank when sliding down the "Gutter". Luckily I had brought the spade with and after much "gardening" we managed to rock the VX loose and he could reverse out. One of the wives was properly stressed, but the 5 kiddies with us had an absolute blast running around while the dads were labouring away.

I wouldnt recommend taking the loop as the views are not as spectacular from there and it will add at least 1.5 to 2 hours to your trip.

We then returned to the final ascent of peak where the Hilux pulled out after seeing myself and my boet working our way up some serious knee high rock steps in the road. He went down the mountain and made his way to Ceres and got a table at the Spur for us.

Boet and I completed the final ascent, after the rock steps that proved to be the last obstacle. When we got to the top we stopped and walked with the lighties to the peak and the views from the peak of Matroosberg are spectacular and took some great pictures from up there. We also drove around to the DeDoorns view point where there is a cellphone tower, but we were running out of time in order to make the descent in daylight so we didnt spend too much time at the view point.

The descent from the top proved to be more challenging and both of our cars sustained some light damage on the undercarriage, but nothing serious. There were two occasions where my rock sliders proved there worth as the vehicle dropped hard on to some rocks. All of us had BF Goodrich AT's on and all of us has some decent cuts on the sidewall. Be warned about making the last without tires that dont have reinforced sidewalls, because the rocks are sharp up there and changing a sliced-up tire on that jumble of rocks may prove impossible.